The threat of a loss of electric power due to hurricanes or other storms, as well as the possibility of loss grid power from accidental or deliberate attack on the power grid has become much greater in recent years, as dependency on supplied electric power has grown. In many cases, if a power generation or power substation goes off-line for any reason, it may take at least a few days and up to a number of weeks to restore power to customers. Also, during severe temperature conditions, the power draw for air conditioning or heating can create a power brown-out condition where the power generation equipment cannot keep up with power demand. Consequently power generation capability, to provide power back-up and also to provide supplemental power during times of peak demand, is a definite requirement to assure day-to-day needs are met for electricity, both residential and commercial.
Ideally, back up power can be supplied from natural or renewable primary power sources, e.g., solar or photovoltaic (PV) panels, wind power, or from wave action of ocean waves or waves on a large body of water such as a large lake, bay or bayou. Favorably the power generated there can be stored and later made available from storage batteries, or another storage means such as compressed air. In an ideal situation, energy can be collected and stored at an out-of-the way location, and then brought to a municipality or other location when the supplemental or back-up power is needed. Also, because the location of storm damage is not known in advance, the back up or supplemental energy storage system should be mobile or transportable, so that it can be quickly brought to the location where the power is needed, and then returned to a remote or out-of-the way energy collection location when the crisis ends.
The proposed solution to this employs a floating or otherwise transportable collection station, including energy collection source(s)—solar, wind, wave action, and means for storing the energy, e.g., a bank of storage batteries, and delivering the energy to the local or regional power system when the station is brought to the destination where supplemental or back-up power is needed.
The overall concept concerns a moderate-to-large energy collection and storage system that can be transported as needed, collect electric energy from solar panels that can be quickly deployed and retrieved, and also using an air turbine to generate electricity, and to store energy derived from wave action, and optionally can include wind turbines for this purpose.
Unlike the so-called energy farm with fixed-in-place wind power, solar, or water power generation, the present invention locates wind, wave, and solar generation equipment on a barge or floating vessel (or alternatively on one or more rail cars or truck-based containers or trailers) with equipment that can be deployed out from a storage housing or container module at a location where there is open space where arrays of the solar or PV panels can be deployed. In a water setting, e.g., on a lake or bay, vertical tubular wave energy based power generators can be immersed into the water, and chains of interconnected floating PV panels can be extended out onto the water. The equipment may also include deployable and retractable wind turbine towers. The barge or vessel can be transported, with the power collection equipment withdrawn into storage or travel mode, and brought to a seaport, lake port or river port at the target location where the supplemental or replacement power is needed, and the stored energy can be placed into the local or regional power system from that point.
Solar power, wave-action power, and wind power may each be used as primary power for charging the on-board battery bank energy storage, and the stored energy from battery storage can be used later to generate electrical power ashore at proper voltage, phase, and frequency where the power is needed.
A land based system can deploy a chain of solar panels across a flat space, e.g. a large parking lot, and may also include a wind turbine to capture wind energy. Wheels or rollers may be used with the linked-up photovoltaic panels, rather than floats.